Conventionally, accessories, such as a brake reservoir and a clutch reservoir, which indirectly assist driving of a vehicle powered by an engine, are secured to a bracket that is bolted to an inner wall of an engine room (see Patent Documents 1 and 2, for example). In general, the brake reservoir (reservoir tank) is located immediately below a hood, as mentioned in Patent Documents 1 and 2.
The hood serves as a cushioning member to protect a pedestrian who has been hit by the vehicle and thrown up by a front bumper onto the hood. For this purpose, such hoods are currently in use that are thin and easily deformable and possess cushioning properties enough to absorb the impact of collision with the pedestrian.
Patent Document 3 discloses a conventional structure for securing a reservoir tank, which structure absorbs the impact on the brake reservoir immediately below the hood, which has been deformed by the pedestrian falling onto the hood.
The structure for securing a reservoir tank of Patent Document 3 relieves the impact by downwardly displacing the brake reservoir, together with a bracket that holds the brake reservoir, while maintaining the brake reservoir at a predetermined height relative to a master cylinder by means of a stopper when the impact downwardly applied to the hood (bonnet) extends to the brake reservoir through the deformation of the hood.
FIG. 6 is an exploded perspective view of a conventional bracket, a propping-up jig, and a brake-fluid vacuum charging jig, used for securing a brake reservoir to a vehicle body. FIG. 7 is a perspective view of the conventional bracket, the propping-up jig, and the brake-fluid vacuum charging jig, with the propping-up jig and the brake-fluid charging jig attached to the brake reservoir that is secured to the conventional bracket fixed to the vehicle body.
As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, an accessory 200 such as the conventional brake reservoir 210 is secured by bolting to an upper support piece 301 of the bracket 300 that has a U-shaped vertical cross section. The bracket 300 is anchored to an inner wall 110 of an engine room 100. A brake fluid (brake oil) is injected into the brake reservoir 210 through a brake-fluid vacuum charging jig 400 attached to the brake reservoir 210 while loads of the brake reservoir 210 and the brake-fluid vacuum charging jig 400 are being applied to the bracket 300.
A lower support member 320 is welded to the bracket 300 so that the propping-up jig 500 can be detachably engaged between the lower support member 320 and the upper support piece 301 for ensuring a strength to resist against a load applied to the upper support piece 301 at the time of the brake fluid injection. The upper support piece 301 has a hole 302 formed therethrough for receiving a bolt 600 and a nut 330 welded onto a lower surface of the support piece 301, to fix the brake reservoir 210.
Further, for protecting the pedestrian at the time of collision, a bracket body 310, which is a metal plate member, is bent in an L-shape in order for the upper support piece 301 to be elastic and slightly less strong, thereby improving a function of the bracket 300 to absorb an energy of collision impact.